Imagine
by reading
Summary: Post-Mystery Spot. Sam's having a hard time shaking his memories of his time without Dean.


Sam sat up in his bed, the echoes of Asia still ringing in his head, breath coming in gasps as he turned reflexively toward the bed next to his

_Imagine_

_Post-Mystery Spot_

_Anne Shirley: Can't you even __imagine__ you're in the depths of despair?_

_Marilla Cuthbert: No, I cannot. To despair is to turn your back on God._

_--Anne of Green Gables_

xxxx

Sam sat up in his bed, the echoes of an alarm still ringing in his head. No Asia. No Huey Lewis. Just the strident bleat of a digital clock awakening him to another day without his brother. Sam's breath came out in harsh gasps as he forced himself into consciousness, and he turned reflexively toward the bed next to his.

Empty. Not slept in.

_Nononono. _

_No. _

_Stop._

Sam swung his legs off the bed, leaning over, hands gripping the edge of the mattress tightly. He drew deep breaths in through his nose, trying to get himself to settle down.

_Stop it_, he ordered himself angrily._ It was just a dream. He's OK, you know he's OK._

This wasn't the first time he'd had this dream. Awakened in a panic. But until tonight Dean had always been there. In his own bed. Asleep, or just starting to stir, Sam's agitation reaching him even as he slept.

This evening, though, Dean had gone out, headed to a bar to decompress from the hunt they'd just finished. Sam knew that; he did.

But he still reached for his phone and with trembling fingers pressed the speed dial for his brother.

Voicemail.

Sam could hear himself almost panting as he listened to the message, and he struggled to calm his breathing before he needed to speak.

"Dean?" Sam knew he still sounded breathless. "Hey. I…" _What? What?_ "I… no. I'm sorry. Never… never mind." He hung up and pressed the phone to the side of his face. _Damn it. Damn it._

Sam went into the bathroom. Two toothbrushes. Dean's Dopp kit sat on the back of the toilet next to his own. Sam stared at them both, reached out to run his fingertips over the worn black leather of Dean's. _OK, _he thought. _OK._

xxxx

The phone rang almost an hour later.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice was even, careful. "Everything OK?" Sam could hear a woman in the background, laughing, slightly slurred.

"Yeah," Sam said, almost believing it himself. "Yeah. Sorry about earlier. I just…" he trailed off. "I'm fine, Dean. It's OK."

"You sure? You sounded…"

"Yeah," Sam said quickly. "I'm fine. I just…," Sam felt his face get warm, "I had a weird dream and I… panicked, I guess. It was stupid."

He hadn't told Dean about Wednesday. Hadn't told Dean that he'd died in Sam's arms and that Sam hadn't woken up. Hadn't told him about weeks on the road, hunting, alone. Dead in his own way.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

Sam closed his eyes. "I'm fine," he repeated.

More silence.

Then, "You're sure?"

"Yeah," Sam said, putting all the confidence he could into his voice. "See you when you get back."

"OK."

Sam flipped his phone shut. _Perfect._

He threw himself back on the bed, but gave up on sleep, fumbling around on the mattress next to him for the remote and clicking the TV on. He'd finished his third slow circuit through the channels when he heard the sound of a key in the lock. For a split second Sam thought Dean had brought the girl back to the room.

"Hey." Dean was alone, tossing keys on to the table, shrugging out of his jacket. He didn't look at his brother.

"Hey." Sam could feel his heart pounding – embarrassment and relief. "Dean, you didn't…"

Dean gave him a half-annoyed glance. "What?" he asked roughly. "The place was dead." He went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Sam heard the water in the shower start. "Yeah," he said softly to the painted wood.

xxxx

"You want to tell me what this is about?"

Sam didn't have the energy to pretend he didn't know what Dean was talking about. "Not really." But he didn't have the emotional reserves to talk about it either.

Dean was quiet for a second. "Sam, I'm here," he said softly. "I'm not…" he tapered off.

Sam turned to look at his brother. _What? 'Going anywhere'? We both know that's a lie, Dean._ "I know," he said dully.

Dean blinked and looked away. Sam watched the muscle in his brother's jaw work, then returned his stare to the country-side flying past his window.

As terrifying as it had been to watch Dean die over and over again, the real horror had come when the dying had stopped. When Sam had been left alone with his grief and a hopelessness that had exposed a darkness Sam wouldn't have thought possible before he'd lost his brother. Because losing Dean had been like having the last ember of what was good and true in Sam's life be snuffed out completely.

It was that darkness that continued to haunt Sam, to color everything around him with the gray tinge of what was coming, with a growing despair he was having a hard time shaking. If they couldn't find a way to get Dean free of the deal, Sam didn't know if he could survive reliving the consequences of that loss.

"Sam?"

Sam shook himself out of his thoughts. "Yeah?" he stretched as he pivoted, just managing to keep the gloom out of his voice.

"We're going to find a way to beat this." Dean turned to give Sam a hard stare. "If you and I decide I'm not gonna die, I'm not going to die." Dean's I'm-Right-Cuz-I'm-the-Oldest tone was firmly in place.

Sam swallowed around the sudden ache in his throat at the familiar words. Said so many times on so many Tuesdays.

"Right?" Dean said it insistently, demanding Sam's agreement. Not for himself, not now, but for Sam.

"Right." Sam dropped his head so that Dean couldn't see the defeat he knew was written all over his face.

Sam had wrestled with telling Dean about that Wednesday, telling him what it had been like when Dean had stayed dead. But he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it yet.

As much as Sam suspected it might be helpful for him to talk about that time, he didn't want to burden Dean with more guilt about leaving him alone. And if Sam was really honest with himself, he wasn't sure he wanted to tell Dean just how bad things had gotten. That Sam had lost himself without his brother, that he'd been so far gone he'd taken the risk of killing Bobby.

Because as sure as Sam wanted to tell himself he'd been that the "Bobby" he had been meeting was the Trickster, Sam knew that there'd been a flicker of doubt all along, that he'd stabbed their oldest friend with the knowledge that it might just be the Bobby they both loved. And Sam didn't think he could admit that to Dean or face the look in his brother's eyes.

But Sam had been willing to take that risk in the desperate hope of ending the chase, of getting a chance to plead his case with the Trickster.

Because the little god was right. Dean was his weakness. In the same way Sam knew he was his brother's. It made them both vulnerable. Had made them both sacrifice themselves for each other in a pattern Sam didn't know how to break out of. Wasn't sure he wanted to. Not if one of the turns of the wheel would bring them both out on top.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean's low voice brought Sam out of his thoughts again.

"Yeah?" he answered, keeping his eyes out the window.

"If anything ever does happen…. Not, you know, with this… But something, maybe. Sometime…."

Sam brought his head around to his brother. Dean didn't look at him, profile set.

"You're not alone, you know that, right? There's Bobby. Or the Sweeds. You don't…" Now Dean met his brother's eyes, face serious, anxious. "You don't have to be by yourself, OK? Don't…."

The concern rolling off Dean was almost palpable, and Sam knew that his brother had sensed the turmoil Sam was going through. Was worried about him, but didn't know how to help.

"Yeah," Sam said. "I know. I just…" He faltered, but took a steadying breath. "I'm scared, Dean," he finally admitted. "I'm afraid of what I might become without…."

Dean had paled at Sam's quiet admission, and Sam was surprised when Dean pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road, put the Impala in park.

"Don't you say that, Sam," Dean said shakily. "Don't… You're a good person, Sam. A good man. You…"

"But I'm not, Dean." Sam interrupted him. "I'm _not_. You don't know what I'm like, what I would _do_. I…."

"That's _bullshit_, Sam," Dean said emphatically. "I _do_ know you. I know you better than anyone, and…"

It felt like the car was closing in around him, and Sam suddenly couldn't breathe under the weight of Dean's blind faith in him anymore. Claustrophobia, thick and stifling, desperation to be _heard_. He needed Dean to _hear_, to _listen_, to….

"I could have killed Bobby!" Sam's broken yell caught both of them by surprise, echoing in the confines of the car

"Wh- What?" Dean stammered, stunned and not sure.

"I… There was another Wednesday. One before. Where… you died again. And I didn't wake up. I didn't…." Sam couldn't go on for a minute, but Dean didn't say anything, just continued to watch him, face drawn in the muted light of the afternoon.

"I hunted by myself. For months," Sam whispered, eyes on his hands, twisting his fingers together. "Looking for the Trickster, trying… He pretended to be Bobby and I thought… I _knew_ … he wasn't Bobby. So I… I met up with him and I… I stabbed him in the back with a wooden stake because I thought if I killed him, it would go back. That you'd…"

Sam shook his head. "But nothing happened. And I was looking down. And it was _Bobby_ and I… " Sam's voice cracked, and he could feel the wet trail of tears down his face. He heard the shaky exhalation of a breath from Dean sitting so still next to him.

"It wasn't him. It wasn't Bobby," Sam finally went on, "but… even though I was sure it wasn't him, couldn't be him, I knew… I knew I was taking a risk, Dean. I did. And I… "

"Sammy… "

"He said he was making a point. The Trickster. That our willingness to sacrifice for each other made us weak. And I was willing to risk, to sacrifice, _Bobby_, if it meant…"

He stopped. Couldn't go on. Because the truth was, in risking Bobby, Sam knew he had also been risking himself. Because if he'd actually killed Bobby, Sam knew there would have been no recovery.

"Sam. Sammy, listen to me, OK?" Dean's voice, low and urgent, finally penetrated the cloak of guilt and self-loathing Sam had flung around himself. "Listen."

Sam's whole body was clenched. Tight in a ridiculous attempt at control. If he could just hold everything together physically…

"It wasn't _real_, Sam. Whatever it was. Whatever the Trickster did. You were reacting to _him,_ to _that_ situation. It wasn't…." Dean fumbled to a stop, trying desperately, Sam knew, to put what he was thinking into words that his brother would hear.

"But it _was_ real," Sam whispered. "Tricksters change _reality_, Dean, I…"

"No," Dean contradicted him flatly. "Him messing with you like that, changing things around. That wasn't…_real_… reality." He wrinkled his nose in frustration, giving Sam an uncertain, kind of embarrassed look.

And Sam couldn't help the huff of unexpected amusement at Dean's expression. "Not 'real reality'?" he mocked.

"Shut up," Dean grumbled, a wry smile twisting his own face. "You know what I mean."

Sam's eyes slid away.

Dean went on. "I just mean that… Sam, he'd been screwing with you for _months_. Making you watch me die over and over again. Then making it stop, then doing it one last time." Sam could tell that Dean was still trying to process that last bombshell Sam had dropped on him. "That's _not_ real, dude."

Sam's eyes came back to his brother. He so wanted there to be some sort of hope left. To be reassured that he wasn't the person he'd become in those dark, desperate weeks when all he'd been able to think about was reversing what the Trickster had done. When he'd refused to consider the possibility that Dean was really gone.

"That bastard broke you the only way he knew how." There was rage now simmering in Dean's voice, fury that Sam had been manipulated this way, made to doubt himself. "And it _wasn't_ real, Sam. OK? I don't care how real it felt. It wasn't." Dean said it with absolute conviction, meeting Sam's gaze steadily.

Sam blinked at him. Wanting to believe.

"Dean…"

"Whatever happened, Sammy. Whatever you did. It wasn't really you. Not the you I know." Like there was no other Sam possible.

Sam was quiet for a minute. "Maybe I'm not that person when you're not here," he breathed, uncertain. Raised his head to look at Dean.

Now it was his brother's turn to blink. "You are, Sam," Dean finally said. "You're always that person."

When Sam didn't respond, Dean restarted the car and got back on the road.

xxxx

"_But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong…." I Cor. 1:27._

_xxxx_

_End._


End file.
